When Aberdeen, Sask.’s Kyrell Sopotyk envisioned himself wearing the maple leaf, it was always in a hockey rink.
A minor hockey star in his home province, Sopotyk was enjoying a fruitful career in the Western Hockey League with the Kamloops Blazers with over 100 games under his belt.
That was until Jan. 21, 2021, when during a day of snowboarding near North Battleford he suffered a bad fall.
That fall ended up fracturing his T5 and T6 vertebrae, paralyzing him from the chest down.
“It’s been a tough transition,” said Sopotyk. “It’s been a long road and a day-by-day kind of thing. Obviously, at the start it was a tough thing to hear.”
Spending weeks in hospital, the then-19-year-old was told he would never walk again and ended his promising hockey career in an instant.
Amid his recovery, however, he was connected with Saskatoon wheelchair basketball coach Rob Sajtos about trying his hand at the sport.
“The first time I tried it was really tough,” he said. “I tried it in rehab after I was in hospital by myself, just getting into the sports chair was a whole different feeling than a day chair.”
While transitioning to para-sport took time, Kyrell’s natural athletic ability began to attract attention from the national wheelchair basketball program.
Not even two years after suffering his accident and being passed over for a prior national camp, Sopotyk found himself selected for Canada’s men’s U23 team which recently returned from IWBF U23 World Championships in September.
Head coach Darrell Nordell said Sopotyk was a player he just couldn’t leave off the roster and has been able to translate his skills as a junior hockey player to the court.
“He’s definitely inspirational for sure,” said Nordell. “I’ve only seen a handful of athletes that have done it in the past… I don’t see a lot of them for sure. To be able to find avenues or opportunities through situations of injury where you can still see an opportunity there.”
Being one of the youngest players on the roster, Sopotyk started all seven games for Team Canada and recorded one basket while averaging just under two rebounds per game.
Nordell added that Sopotyk still has a lot of development remaining before consideration is made for the top Canadian squad, but believes he has the tools to make it happen one day.
Along with arriving on Team Canada’s radar, the now-20-year-old has also found opportunities on the track-winning 1,500 metre bronze for Team Saskatchewan in wheelchair racing at the 2022 Canada Summer Games in Niagara, Ont.
Sopotyk is confident that returning to sport has helped him regain a sense of independence and is hungry to keep that passion alive.
“Just keep going, I mean there’s still lots I can accomplish,” he said. “There’s still bigger goals that I want to achieve. So, just keep going and never give up.”
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